7 thoughts on “Creationism Conference”

You wrote: No, they don’t create evidence/thories/results that refute the age of the Universe.
But that is not entirely true. You see, I was a presenter at the conference and offered a young-age solution to the universe using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for a blackbody radiator. The revised equation allows for a full range of ages for the universe, from very old to very young. The revised Stefan equation is this: T4 = P tP / σ ks tL. T is temperature in Kelvins, tP is Planck time, ks is the groundfloor surface area of the universe at Planck time, tL is a local time anywhere from 6000 to 13.7 billion years, σ is the Stefan constant, taken together tP / ks tL signifies a surface area and P multiplied by that value signifies energy generated per unit surface area by the radiating blackbody – in this case, the universe.
Unless the revised equation can be overthrown, the results are actually undeniable – one of the solutions to the universe is a young one.

I don’t claim to know anything about the equations for blackbody radiation, so you’ve got me there. The Universe must inevitably have been created by the Abrahamic God after all.

Oh, wait.

There’s something else missing… what could it be?

I guess I’d start with the geologic evidence that our world took billions of years to form and still changes, very slowly but measurably. You know, things like thousands of examples of different kinds of sedimentary rock of different ages.

And there’s the fact that our Sun shows all the signs of having been stable (for a star) for several billion years.

And the utter lack of dinosaur fossils in proximity with rabbit fossils.

And the measurable distances to the distant stars that at least give the appearance that the light coming from them has been traveling for billions of years over vast distances.

And the universe giving the appearance that the speed of light has been constant for the entire time of the existence of the Universe.

And the fact that all of these things come fairly close to predicting the same age for the Earth and Universe.

Then there’s the argument that just because a differential equation has more than one possible solution, doesn’t mean that any of them is the correct one. You have to set initial conditions, and when picking those initial conditions, it’s best to use some that match the existing universe.

However it’s been a while since I’ve done a DE, and I’m not familiar with the greek-letter constants you’re working from. So I guess I’ll just take you at your word and throw out established science.

Dear misterpost:
Long ages are not required for any material you offered. But to stay on track cosmologically: in the model proposed, the speed of light retains its constancy at all historical times. Measurable distances in the universe are exactly as they appear, yet c is not violated in our reception of information at cosmological distances within thousands of years. Initial conditions of the universe match well with observations. Established science is not thrown out because the model actually mimicks big bang cosmology. Don’t forget that science is a ‘layered effort’ – layers are slow to be laid down, yet over time can create a mountain of confidence in a proposal or theory. Creation science is no different. All I have offered is a single layer, but possibly a significant one, and I don’t want anyone reading this to miss it. I know all the creation cosmological models ‘out there’ and I can tell you that all of them fall short of the good data we receive daily from space. This model, on the other hand, was developed on purpose to uphold that good data. For instance, in all creation cosmologies, the properties of the cosmic microwave background are violated. Not so with this one. The Stefan Boltzmann thermodynamic equation was chosen purposefully because cosmologists rely on it to describe the adiabatic thermodynamic expansion of the universe. All I did was rewrite it in mathematical terms that demonstrate the universe as we know it today could begin in a very hot, dense state and still arrive at its present ubiquitous temperature of 2.725 Kelvin within a comparatively brief span of time, even a mere 6000 years if desired. I hope you understand that no existing cosmology offers such an ‘absurd’ proposal as that, and certainly not within the constraints of modern standards of cosmology. Again, here is the layer I have tried to lay down: if the revised Stefan equation cannot be overthrown mathematically, that is, if physicists conclude that the rewrite of the equation is legitimate, then the universe has a myriad of possible age solutions. That has never happened before.

Again, I’m not qualified to argue the thermodynamic properties or fluid dynamics of the universe. I’m happy to accept the idea that you could fiddle with the parameters of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to arrive at a 6000 year old Universe. I think that’s kinda cool, if not necessarily useful.

It sounds to me like the conclusion you’ve come to is that there is something like a Big Bang cosmology, where god divided by zero and poofed the Universe into existence, and it could have expanded and cooled wildly faster than the standard models. Cool.

What I’m questioning is how, if c is constant- and we have every reason to think it is, and no evidence of its ever changing in the lifetime of our visible universe- we can see any objects in the sky that are farther than 6000 light-years away?

Even if we assume that the Universe is x * 10^y times less massive than standard cosmology assumes, and that the geometry of the tiny existing universe is such that we’re just seeing the same stuff repeated like in a hall of mirrors, we’re still seeing light that has all the properties of having traveled billions of light years from high-energy sources. The Milky Way galaxy itself is measurable to more than 6000-10,000 light-years across, using simple geometry.

An old Universe is evident just by looking up.

And, again, no rabbit fossils in the Jurassic.

What you’ve done is given a possible solution to one cosmological question. Kudos.

What you and the creationists have failed to do is create a comprehensive solution to all the questions, that works. So you fail. Sorry, science is a bitch like that.

Let me explain a little more. Remember when Einstein thought he was wrong about his insertion of the cosmological constant into his equations for the universe? After he heard of Hubble’s discovery of an expanding universe, he labeled his action the biggest blunder of his career. But what if his real blunder was to say he had blundered in the first place? He related that he had inserted the cosmological constant into what he believed to be a static universe in order to keep the system positively ‘propped open’ against gravity’s negative pull. What if he was correct after all and only needed to contemplate that it was actually the element of time which was in movement in the universe and not the movement of objects away from each other in step with their distance apart as Hubble declared (though, if indeed time is the element in movement, both views are correct depending on your frame of reference – the discussion is moot.) After all, remember it was Einstein and his math instructor, Hermann Minkowski, who revealed that time and the three spatial dimensions were so inextricably tied that to push the limits of distance and velocity would in turn change the value of time, and vice versa. Do we know what existed before the limit of Planck time, or 5.39 E-44 second? Of course we are not sure, but cosmologists are now theorizing that below the Planck limit, matter may have already existed (Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, pp 365, 66) What if an entire universe was in place – cold, dark, and ‘dead,’ so to speak – propped open by the cosmological constant Einstein dismissed, and existing with a -0- (zero) time value stretched across its vastness? What do you imagine it would look like? A universe as we know it? Absolutely not, at least not from our reference frame. Remember how inextricably tied the four dimensions are. In truth, you would see nothing, absolutely nothing, because time was too small. Its zero value would squeeze the three spatial dimensions into apparent non-existence. Only after time starting advancing would you see a universe begin to take shape, expanding as time grew. Not only that, the smallness of the time dimension would cause the condensed system to possess an immense energy and extreme temperature. In essence you would witness the ‘re-cooking’ of a universe which was ‘already there.’ Now, given these new possibilities for our universe’s beginnings, how many millions of years will it be before stars form or galaxies take shape and begin to cluster? Might it be only hundreds of thousands of years? Perhaps only thousands of years? What if the massive gaseous compositions which make up the stars in the universe were already accreted and condensed by the first tick of time? Might a host of infant stars ignite across the cosmic sky in a matter of mere days (provided that dimensionally the expanse was broad enough)? If you keep up with cosmology, you know how soon after the big bang that massive galaxies seemed to have formed in our universe, namely, below 10^9 years (The Astrophysics of Early Galaxy Formation, http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.0123v1). Plugging that figure (10^9 years) into a long-age scenario (we won’t consider a young universe here) of the revised Stefan equation in the model I proposed yields a cosmological age of only 8000 years by the time galaxies are formed. Talk about instantaneous creation!….and remember, here I am using figures peculiar to a 13.7 billion-year-old universe, not a young one in any regard (all math available upon request). In the world of cosmology, there remains enough uncertainty about the beginning to allow brilliant men to postulate an entire sub-Planckian universe, as stated earlier. Fortunately (or unfortunately, which ever way you want to view it), that leaves the door ajar for those of a creationist persuasion to postulate a super-rapid development of the heavens, both locally as well as cosmologically. If true, our Sun is more like a ‘light bulb’ someone reached over and switched on after walking into a dark room.

James Ussher (1586 – 1656) used biblical texts to “prove” that the world was created on October 23, 4004 BC. I imagine the date would be slightly in doubt considering they weren’t using the Julian calendar in 4004 BC. Supposedly one of his students took the calculations farther and figured it at 9:15 AM. It proved God liked an early start so as to keep the evenings free. I am of the opinion it is because He liked to go down to St. Whomever’s and play bingo.

I don’t care for this whole Carnation Instant Universe theory, for what it’s worth. Of course, in my youth, we thought the world was flat and that was proved wrong. While it does explain why my car rusted out so quickly, seeings as how short a span of time it might take to toss together a cosmos, I’m afraid I have to agree with Misterpost as it being implausible. Based on just about everything current scientific thinking proposes.

But then, that’s just my opinion.
I like the whole idea of an older universe that a supreme being took longer to splice together than it takes me to make lasagne (using the further revised Stefan equation to take into account how long it takes me to actually decide to make lasagne).